Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] The price of ice

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: <eureka AT hctc.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] The price of ice
  • Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:31:53 -0500

Wow, Warren, your blog and historic project is very interesting...thanks for sharing!--Sage

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:44:55 -0400
"WF Smith" <mogrits AT gmail.com> wrote:
I've been going through six generations of minutiae and other things as part
of taking on the homeplace I mentioned before. Some of the items are posted
at www.palmettopathos.com and there are hundreds more to come.

Tonight I found a receipt for ice, delivered on account in July of 1889. It
cost a penny a pound. July 20th was a big day, where they took 40 lbs. It
was a Saturday so perhaps a dinner was planned for that night or the next
day. They bought 178 lbs for the month.

Using an inflation calculator (http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi) I
discover that the ten pound bag of ice you get at the convenience store for
approximately 2 bucks is only slightly beating inflation, which pegs it at
2.28. Of course, if you had it delivered to your home you would have a 10
dollar per delivery fuel surcharge added.

The water/well/pump website I posted earlier today mentioned a pre-electric,
hand-cranked ice maker and I suspect the 1889 ice was made by steam driven
compressors and ammonia gas.

For some reason I expected 1889 ice to be much more expensive than today's
ice.

Warren

_______________________________________________
Homestead list and subscription:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
Change your homestead list member options:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/eureka%40hctc.net
View the archives at:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page